Urges Finance Committee To Endorse House Approach To FAA
Reauthorization

The House version is the one we
want. That's the message the Alliance for Aviation Across America
had for the Senate Finance Committee, following Thursday's hearing
regarding reauthorization of the Federal Aviation
Administration.

“As the Senate Finance Committee considers their own
proposal for FAA reauthorization in the coming weeks and months, we
urge members to endorse the common-sense approach to modernization
that has been put forth by members of the House Transportation and
Infrastructure Committee," the Alliance told ANN.

“[The House] legislation provides the FAA with
historically high funding levels to achieve the goals of air
traffic control modernization without a risky ‘user
fee’ tax that would devastate small businesses and towns
around the country that depend on small aircraft."

The Alliance opposes user fees, stating they require a
bureaucracy to collect and impose such fees on operators. User fees
on general aviation aircraft also endorse the misguided notion, the
Alliance maintains, that a jetliner carrying 300 passengers should
be taxed at the same amount as a small aircraft carrying five
people.

"The big passenger airlines seek to justify this notion by
spreading mistruths, as they have done recently with their new,
misleading ad, that they pay for 94% of the air traffic control
system, when FAA’s own data shows that they pay 77% of the
revenues going into the fund," the Alliance notes. "Not only that,
the FAA itself admits that the complex hub-and-spke system created
for the commercial airlines drives the vast majority of air traffic
control costs.

“Replacing the current 'pay at the pump' system with an
inefficient tax that disproportionately targets small businesses
and rural communities is not good policy, does nothing to support
modernization, and creates a new layer of unnecessary bureaucracy,"
the Alliance concludes.

Members of the Alliance for Aviation Across America include: the
Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, the National Business
Aviation Association, and several national, state, and local
community associations.